Design Guidelines

As we are producing our app for iOS devices (iPad, and possibly iPhone), it is important that we look at Apple’s iOS development guidelines. This ensures that the app we produce would be suitable for the iOS market and that it adheres to conventional iOS themes. ‘Although crisp, beautiful UI and fluid motion are highlights of the iOS experience, the user’s content is at its heart’ (Apple 2015). We plan to create a simple and well designed information based app that will allow the user to quickly and easily access relevant content related to Magna Carta. After reading through the iOS developer guidelines, we picked out some of the most important iOS themes to consider in our app designs:

Translucent UI elements – we could consider this so that when users taps on a clause, a translucent overlay appears with more information regarding the selected clause.

Use of negative space – it is important that we use plenty of negative space within our app in order to make it clear and easy for users to understand. We have to consider not putting too much information over the Magna Carta image as it could easily be overwhelming for the user.

Simple colours – using the Cathedral’s style guide, we will use their chosen colour scheme in order for our app to be consistent with existing products.

Ensuring legibility – we will use the font suggested by Salisbury Cathedral (Eidetic), at a suitable, easy to read size.

It is important to also be aware of the basic UI elements in order to help us make further decisions about the design of our app.

Bars (navigations/tab) – contain contextual information that tell users where they are and controls that help users navigate or initiate actions.

Using conventional iOS gestures is also essential and something we need to consider when creating the design of our app. ‘Using gestures gives people a close personal connection to their devices and enhances their sense of direct manipulation of onscreen objects (Apple 2015). Some of the common iOS gestures that we could incorporate into our app include: tap, drag, flick, swipe, pinch, and double tap.

It is also important to use Apple’s built in features (UI elements and gestures) due to the time constraints we have to make the app in. Given our current skill level, it is essential for us to stick with what we’re familiar with and are being taught so that we can produce a fully functioning, and hopefully aesthetically pleasing app before the deadline. Creating our own UI elements can be far too time consuming and difficult for us, and will only be done if it is essential for the app to function.

Here is Salisbury Cathedrals Guidelines that we were given. We will adhere to these within our app through using their chosen colour scheme, fonts and existing graphics. This is important in order for our app to be consistent with their existing products for the Magna Carta exhibition.

From this, we will go on to create some initial designs for our app taking on board the above Apple and Salisbury Cathedral guidelines.